I was recently asked to give a brief talk at a symposium hosted by a Tibetan organization here in Taiwan. Since they also want me to provide a paper that they can publish, I've written an article on the history of China-Tibet relations and its bearing on self-determination for Tibet. I may revise it later and I believe they want to translate it into Chinese, but I'm posting my draft version here first. A few paragraphs were taken from an older essay of mine on the topic, but most of it is new.
In almost all articles, debates and arguments about the status of Tibet and its relationship to China, the question of history is sure to arise. It could be argued that sometimes too much importance is placed on history in controversies of this kind, a point I will come back to later. But since the Chinese government and its supporters are particularly fond of making references to history in asserting China’s claims over Tibet, it is worth making an attempt to summarize the historical relationship between China and Tibet and examining whether the facts are in accordance with China’s claims.
Many wire service reports on the Tibet issue, after noting the Chinese claim that Tibet is part of China, go on to say that “Tibetans say Tibet was independent for centuries” or something to that effect. But this is not something that only Tibetans say; none but the most blatantly propagandistic Chinese account would deny that Tibet has a long history as an independent nation, even if much of that history is in the distant past. Over a thousand years ago, when the Tang dynasty ruled in China, Tibet had a powerful empire that contested with Tang China for dominance over the Tarim basin and frequently won. After the Tang dynasty went into decline, the Tibetans even succeeded in sacking the Chinese capital of Chang’an. Soon afterwards, however, the Tibetan empire itself collapsed and Tibet entered its equivalent of the European Dark Ages. But it remained independent of any sort of outside rule until the 13th century, when the Mongols under Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, conquered both Tibet and China, adding them into their empire. China now likes to claim that this was the point at which Tibet was incorporated into China. But though Kublai Khan proclaimed a new dynasty, the Yuan, his regime never became Sinicized and Tibet and other non-Chinese territories were not treated as part of China or incorporated into the Chinese administrative system, but like China itself, were just another Mongol imperial possession. In other words, Mongol rule over Tibet during this period perhaps could be used as a (very weak) historical basis for Mongolia to claim sovereignty over Tibet, but it is completely irrelevant to any Chinese claims.
After the Chinese Ming dynasty overthrew the Mongol Yuan dynasty, Tibet and other Mongol conquests regained their independence. Chinese propaganda has tried to claim that the Ming had some sort of authority over Tibet, but at best the Ming would “confirm” the titles of Tibetan officials who had already been chosen without any Chinese input. Tibet’s relationship to China during this period was equivalent to Okinawa’s; both were independent states that retained ties with China primarily for their own benefit. The Ming had no political authority over Tibet and no real say over who ruled it. In fact, Tibet’s political ties with the Mongols were much stronger for most of the Ming era than their ties with China were. It was a Mongol ruler named Altan Khan who first conferred the title “Dalai Lama” on a leading Tibetan abbot in 1578. So as of about four centuries ago, not only did Tibet have its own culture, language and religion that was completely distinct from that of China, it was politically independent of China and never been ruled by the Chinese. Indeed, at the time of the Ming dynasty, even the Chinese themselves generally considered places like Tibet, Taiwan, Mongolia, East Turkestan, and Manchuria to be non-Chinese, “barbarian” lands outside the pale of Chinese civilization.
China’s present claim over Tibet, like its claim over other outlying, non-Chinese areas, is in fact based entirely on the conquests of the Manchu Qing dynasty. In the 17th century, China was conquered by the Manchus, a non-Chinese people from Manchuria, the land to the northeast, who set up the Qing dynasty. The Manchus were regarded by the Chinese as foreigners, though over time they eventually were assimilated by their subjects. In the first decades of Manchu rule, they expanded their empire far beyond China, conquering Mongolia, East Turkestan and Tibet. These territories were imperial possessions, just as India was an imperial possession of the British, Central America was an imperial territory of Spain, and so forth. In most cases, the Manchu did not administer these territories the same way they administered China (Tibet in fact retained a high degree of local autonomy), as neither they nor the people of these regions was Chinese. The main thing these regions had in common with China was that they were all part of the same empire.
In 1912, after a long period of decline under pressure both from foreign imperialists and domestic rebels, the Qing dynasty fell and the Republic of China was proclaimed. The ROC laid claim to all the territory of the Manchu empire, despite the fact that much of it was not Chinese. The new government was unable to enforce its claims, so most of the non-Chinese regions became independent (for that matter, the central government did not even effectively control all of China proper, as most of it was ruled by autonomous warlords). However, they maintained their questionable claims of sovereignty over all the empire, so when the ROC government was forced out of China to Taiwan and the People's Republic of China was set up, the PRC in turn claimed all of the same empire (except part of Mongolia, which their Soviet allies forced them to recognize as independent). Unfortunately for places like Tibet, which had been a de facto independent country for several decades by this time, the PRC was able to enforce its claims militarily, conquering all of the non-Chinese areas that had once been part of the Manchu empire except outer Mongolia (ironically enough, before they actually gained power, Mao and other communist leaders had at times supported full independence for all these outlying regions, only to change their minds once they had the power to take them over).
Are the Chinese claims to sovereignty over these places justifiable? One way to answer that is to ask whether other imperial claims are justifiable. Did Britain have the "right" to rule India, Malaysia, east Africa, and all its other imperial possessions? Did the French have the "right" to its colonies in West Africa, Indochina, and so on? Did Russia have the "right" to rule Poland, which it did throughout the 19th century? Most people now would agree that imperialism and colonialism as practiced by the Europeans was wrong, and all of those countries were justified in struggling for independence. So is Chinese rule in historically non-Chinese areas justified? China rules these places, which they "inherited" as part of an empire, in the same exploitative fashion that the Europeans ran their colonies. In some ways Chinese rule is even worse, as the Chinese government have actively tried to suppress local culture (the Europeans did this in some places, but not everywhere) and it is using the vast population of Chinese to swamp the local people by encouraging the Han (as the ethnic Chinese are called) to move to these places in large numbers to make money. Most of the money from economic development in places like Tibet goes into the pockets of Han Chinese, so the local people see that not only have they lost their independence, but their homeland is being turned into a Han-majority region in which they will be an impoverished minority with a culture that is slowly withering away. Some businesses located in these areas even post ads for workers online that specify “Han-only”, blatantly discriminating against the local people by denying them even basic job opportunities. It is no wonder that in the depths of their despair, some Tibetans have turned to the extreme act of self-immolation as a protest against Chinese rule.
Of course, China asserts that Tibetans have benefited from Chinese rule because it has brought economic opportunity (never mind the fact that most of the opportunity seems to go to Han Chinese). However, perhaps because it is difficult for China and its propagandists to directly defend either the Chinese conquest of Tibet or the current suppression of Tibetan culture and aspirations, a common strategy is to try to change the subject. One line that seems to be popular among Chinese propagandists online recently is that before "liberation" by China, the Tibetans suffered under oppressive rule by the monks (of course this implies that Tibet was independent, contradicting their claim that it has been under Chinese rule for centuries, but logical consistency is not their strong suit). One of their key assertions is that most of the Tibetan people had to work as serfs for their monk masters. The problem with this claim is that vast majority of Tibetans have always been nomads, not peasant farmers (though now the Chinese are trying to force them to change their lifestyle against their will). This rather seriously undermines the credibility of China's claims about monkish oppression, which seem in any case to be merely a grafting of standard Marxist historical theory about slave societies and feudal societies onto Tibetan history, regardless of how badly it fits.
But the problem is not just that the Chinese version of the history of Tibet and its relationship with China is distorted or simply false; it is that the Chinese government dogmatically insists that its version is the only true one and anyone who questions it – no matter how much evidence they have for their interpretation – cannot possibly be right and is acting out of bad motives. This rigid insistence on the official version of history is not limited to the Tibetan issue, of course, as the Chinese government’s reaction to the British researchers who came up with a shorter measurement for the length of the Long March or the Chinese professor who published a less rosy interpretation of the Boxer Rebellion in Freezing Point magazine show. This attitude shows that the Chinese government is not really interested in finding the historical truth, which can only be done by open academic debate; instead, it is only interested in using history, or rather its version of history, as a propaganda tool. If the Chinese government were really confident that their interpretation of history was the true one, they would not fear debate on the subject.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, it could be argued that historical claims should matter less than the will of the current residents. For example, just because the countries around the Mediterranean were ruled by Rome for many centuries doesn’t mean Italy can claim a right to rule them now, nor can Mongolia claim the former realm of Genghis Khan. One thing that even a basic knowledge of history tells you is that nothing is forever, so Chinese claims that one territory or another is “inseparable” from China are nonsense. Humans existed for hundreds of thousands of years before there were any countries at all, and throughout the five thousand or so years since civilization arose, nations have risen and fallen and borders have constantly shifted. The island of Sicily, for instance, has been ruled in whole or in part by Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans, so the idea that a single nation or people could claim it based on history is absurd, and as long as the majority of Sicilians are content with being Italian, the history is irrelevant anyway. So while the historical evidence on the whole favors the cause of Tibetan independence, if the majority of Tibetans now preferred for their country to be part of China (perhaps with a greater degree of autonomy), then Chinese rule would be justified.
But while Chinese propaganda claims that most Tibetans support Chinese rule and that “separatists” are a minority, China does not even allow Tibetans to freely discuss the issue, much less have a vote on it. This casts serious doubt the Chinese assertions. If China were so confident that most Tibetans want Chinese rule, why doesn’t it dare to allow a Tibetan vote on the issue? Incidentally, a Chinese assertion with respect to the de facto independent state of Taiwan needs to be addressed here. Chinese occasionally make the claim that Taiwan’s future should be decided by “Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan strait”. But this is not how self-determination works. When places like East Timor, Kosovo, Quebec, and Puerto Rico have held votes on independence, only people in those places voted; the people in other parts of Indonesia, Serbia, Canada, and the US did not vote. Similarly, when Scotland votes on independence from the UK, people in England and Wales won’t be voting. So a vote on Tibetan autonomy or independence should only involve the people of Tibet, though long-time Han Chinese residents would have the right to vote too.
Perhaps the most basic point, though, is that Tibetans, like people all over the world, should have the right to freely advocate independence, whether or not the historical evidence is on their side and whether or not they are in the majority. Some Chinese seem to think that anyone who suggests that Tibet should be independent does so only out of hostility against China. But the right to self-determination and the right to freedom of opinion, including advocating independence, are universal. As the examples mentioned above show, there are plenty of Western countries with strong regional independence movements. Most Chinese and even most Americans may not be aware of it, but there are pro-independence political parties in both Alaska and Hawaii. They have little support, but they are perfectly legal and free to advocate their positions. In fact, I would say that in the case of Hawaii in particular there are also historical reasons that favor the cause of independence, since it was originally, like Tibet, an independent country with a distinct culture and ethnic makeup that was coerced by a large, imperialist neighbor into joining it, so if a majority of Hawaiians came to desire independence from the US, I would support their right to obtain it.
I challenge all Chinese to look on the cause of Tibetan independence with an open mind. Read some non-Chinese accounts of the history and objectively examine the historical evidence, keeping in mind that the version of history you learned in school may not be entirely true (just as old American history books that justified the European slaughter of the Native Americans were biased, as are Japanese history books that deny the Rape of Nanjing). What’s more, even if you still feel that Tibet should remain part of China, respect the right of other people to think otherwise, and even to openly argue their cause. Showing a respect for different opinions, including those calling for separation from China, will not make China weak. On the contrary, it will show the kind of maturity that every nation must have in order to be considered truly great.
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
ISIS, the Yazidis, the Kurds and US Intervention in Iraq
The situation in Iraq, which had already been pretty bad to start with, deteriorated further in the last week or two. First we learned that the extremists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or just Islamic State as they now style themselves, had succeeded in pushing back the well-trained but poorly equipped Kurdish militia, while next door in Syria their attempts to solidify control over parts of the country led to one of the bloodiest weeks in that bloody war. There had already been stories of how IS had forced out many Christians from the parts of Iraq they controlled (a Christian population that, like the similarly threatened one in Syria, is one of the oldest in the world, dating back to the first centuries of the religion), but now we learned of an even more terrible threat they posed to the Yazidis (also spelled Yezidis), members of an obscure but also ancient religion, one that amounted to attempted genocide. While various suggestions were made about how to stop IS in the long run, the imminent threat to the Yazidis, thousands of whom were trapped on a mountain by IS and faced starvation or slaughter, made immediate action of some sort necessary to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. So, despite a professed reluctance to renew American military involvement in Iraq, US President Barack Obama authorized air strikes against IS and humanitarian aid to the Yazidis (for more on the Yazadis and their situation, see here).
As might be expected, not everyone approves of Obama's decision. Many on the left are opposed to US military action of any sort for any reason, or at least they don't provide any examples of situations in which they think it would be acceptable. While I agree that military action should always be a last resort, I think that prevention of imminent genocide (or the slaughter of large numbers of civilians, if we prefer to avoid the loaded term "genocide") is one situation where it is appropriate. At least one organization has questioned the constitutionality of Obama's action, arguing that Congressional approval is necessary. They may have a case, though I suspect one reason Obama named protecting US personnel in the Kurdish capital as a reason for the airstrikes is to provide constitutional cover, as he can claim he is acting to stop an immediate threat to US interests. Frankly, I think this is by far the weaker reason for air strikes, as the few hundred US personnel in Ebril could easily be withdrawn if the only goal was protecting them. Stopping IS from massacring the Yazidis or anyone else is a much better reason, but unfortunately there is not as far as I know a specific legal basis for the President to order military action even to stop genocide if neither Americans nor US interests are threatened. I would certainly be in favor of making such a legal provision, even if it took a constitutional amendment to create it. I would even go so far as to say that if he or she can save thousands of lives by violating the constitution, he should at least consider doing so, though of course he should consider the long-range consequences of his actions as well as the short-range results. While rule of law is very important, ultimately it is even more important to do what is right (for the same reason I would in most cases be against punishing someone who stole bread to feed their family, and I would certainly support violating a clearly unjust law, such as one requiring people to report "subversive" speech). I recognize that there is a slippery slope here, and if we start allowing people (whether presidents or others) to violate the law whenever their conscience tells them to do so we open up a big can of worms, so it should only even be considered in very exceptional cases where it is obvious to almost everyone, not just the person taking the action, that there is a clear moral justification. In this case, I suppose we can be grateful for the constitutional fig leaf, even if it isn't much of one. Anyway, while allowing a president to unilaterally initiate military action of dubious legality sets a bad precedent, that precedent has already been set numerous times in the past, often for much worse reasons.
Of course even reaching the conclusion that taking military action is the right thing to do is not as straightforward as it may seem, even if we ignore the issue of legality and setting a bad precedent. The main reason is that it is impossible to be certain of the long-range consequences, particularly of prolonged military involvement. Would Iraq be better off now if Saddam Hussein was still in power? Would Libya have been better off today if France, the UK and the US had allowed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to crush the rebellion against his rule, even at the cost of thousands of lives? Would Syria be better off now if the US and other countries had from the beginning actively supported the uprising against Assad, or, on the contrary, would it be better off if the outside world had simply closed its eyes and let Assad crush all opposition, however brutally? There is really no way to be sure. Personally I think no one should ever just ignore a large scale slaughter or suppression of opponents by a government, but that doesn't necessarily mean that military action by other countries is the best step to take to stop it, as it can often make things worse. In this situation, it is at least good that Obama made the point of saying that there is no "American military solution" to the conflict in Iraq, and what is really needed is an Iraqi political solution. If he and those under him keep that clearly in mind, and limit direct US involvement to preventing humanitarian catastrophes such as IS slaughtering the Yazadis or overrunning Kurdish territory (where many Yazadis, Christians, and others fleeing IS have already taken refuge), perhaps the US can at least ensure that is not making the situation worse. The decision to get involved in this case was no doubt made easier by the fact that it's hard to imagine what could be worse than IS, which seems to be competing with Nigeria's Boko Haram for the title of the world's most brutally evil group - even aside from their summary executions and crucifixions (and in one case, having one of their kids pose with a decapitated head), they reportedly even seized several hundred Yazadi women as slaves, much like Boko Haram's kidnapping of hundreds of girls in Nigeria.
Despite talking about long-range solutions, though, the US has in a sense created the current threat to the Kurds, Yazadis and others in the Kurdish-occupied parts of Iraq by its failure to arm the Kurds. This is foolish, to put it mildly. Kurdistan has for many years been the one real success story in Iraq. While it is far from perfect, in comparison with the rest of the country it is a bastion of peace and at least halfway decent government. The Kurdish peshmerga is the best trained, most disciplined fighting force in Iraq, and yet they are poorly equipped and fighting a group that ironically has lots of high quality US made equipment, captured from the Iraqi army. The American reason for failing to arm the Kurds - a fear of encouraging the dissolution of Iraq - is particularly idiotic. As I have argued elsewhere, it is ridiculous to insist that all national borders are set in stone for all eternity or that no country should ever dissolve, as borders have changed and countries appeared and disappeared throughout history, even in the recent past. Iraq itself is a relatively recent creation cobbled together by the British, one that really made little sense in the first place as it threw together diverse groups of people who don't get along well. While this doesn't mean that changes to national boundaries should be made casually or for questionable reasons (certainly not under pressure from large neighbors who stand to benefit, as in the Ukraine situation), acting as if they should be avoided at all costs makes no sense. Indeed, the story of the Kurds' difficulty in obtaining arms provides more evidence that they might well be better off without the central government, as even when the US, while insisting that all military aid go through the central government in Baghdad, did designate some arms for the Kurds, Prime Minister Maliki refused to transfer them. As I argued in a previous article, Maliki is largely responsible for the current situation in Iraq due to his divisive policies, and this is just another example of how untrustworthy he is (he is also proving himself very power-hungry, as he has refused to give up his attempt to secure a new term in the current wrangling over the position of prime minister, despite being urged to do so by numerous parties, including the Shiite religious leadership and reportedly even Iran). The best thing the US can do know, other than acting to prevent IS from killing too many more people, is to arm the Kurds, even if the ultimate result is an independent Kurdistan, while at the same time putting pressure on Iraqi politicians to form an inclusive government that protects the interests of the Sunnis as well as the Shiites and can encourage moderate Sunnis to join in the effort to defeat the extremist IS.
As might be expected, not everyone approves of Obama's decision. Many on the left are opposed to US military action of any sort for any reason, or at least they don't provide any examples of situations in which they think it would be acceptable. While I agree that military action should always be a last resort, I think that prevention of imminent genocide (or the slaughter of large numbers of civilians, if we prefer to avoid the loaded term "genocide") is one situation where it is appropriate. At least one organization has questioned the constitutionality of Obama's action, arguing that Congressional approval is necessary. They may have a case, though I suspect one reason Obama named protecting US personnel in the Kurdish capital as a reason for the airstrikes is to provide constitutional cover, as he can claim he is acting to stop an immediate threat to US interests. Frankly, I think this is by far the weaker reason for air strikes, as the few hundred US personnel in Ebril could easily be withdrawn if the only goal was protecting them. Stopping IS from massacring the Yazidis or anyone else is a much better reason, but unfortunately there is not as far as I know a specific legal basis for the President to order military action even to stop genocide if neither Americans nor US interests are threatened. I would certainly be in favor of making such a legal provision, even if it took a constitutional amendment to create it. I would even go so far as to say that if he or she can save thousands of lives by violating the constitution, he should at least consider doing so, though of course he should consider the long-range consequences of his actions as well as the short-range results. While rule of law is very important, ultimately it is even more important to do what is right (for the same reason I would in most cases be against punishing someone who stole bread to feed their family, and I would certainly support violating a clearly unjust law, such as one requiring people to report "subversive" speech). I recognize that there is a slippery slope here, and if we start allowing people (whether presidents or others) to violate the law whenever their conscience tells them to do so we open up a big can of worms, so it should only even be considered in very exceptional cases where it is obvious to almost everyone, not just the person taking the action, that there is a clear moral justification. In this case, I suppose we can be grateful for the constitutional fig leaf, even if it isn't much of one. Anyway, while allowing a president to unilaterally initiate military action of dubious legality sets a bad precedent, that precedent has already been set numerous times in the past, often for much worse reasons.
Of course even reaching the conclusion that taking military action is the right thing to do is not as straightforward as it may seem, even if we ignore the issue of legality and setting a bad precedent. The main reason is that it is impossible to be certain of the long-range consequences, particularly of prolonged military involvement. Would Iraq be better off now if Saddam Hussein was still in power? Would Libya have been better off today if France, the UK and the US had allowed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to crush the rebellion against his rule, even at the cost of thousands of lives? Would Syria be better off now if the US and other countries had from the beginning actively supported the uprising against Assad, or, on the contrary, would it be better off if the outside world had simply closed its eyes and let Assad crush all opposition, however brutally? There is really no way to be sure. Personally I think no one should ever just ignore a large scale slaughter or suppression of opponents by a government, but that doesn't necessarily mean that military action by other countries is the best step to take to stop it, as it can often make things worse. In this situation, it is at least good that Obama made the point of saying that there is no "American military solution" to the conflict in Iraq, and what is really needed is an Iraqi political solution. If he and those under him keep that clearly in mind, and limit direct US involvement to preventing humanitarian catastrophes such as IS slaughtering the Yazadis or overrunning Kurdish territory (where many Yazadis, Christians, and others fleeing IS have already taken refuge), perhaps the US can at least ensure that is not making the situation worse. The decision to get involved in this case was no doubt made easier by the fact that it's hard to imagine what could be worse than IS, which seems to be competing with Nigeria's Boko Haram for the title of the world's most brutally evil group - even aside from their summary executions and crucifixions (and in one case, having one of their kids pose with a decapitated head), they reportedly even seized several hundred Yazadi women as slaves, much like Boko Haram's kidnapping of hundreds of girls in Nigeria.
Despite talking about long-range solutions, though, the US has in a sense created the current threat to the Kurds, Yazadis and others in the Kurdish-occupied parts of Iraq by its failure to arm the Kurds. This is foolish, to put it mildly. Kurdistan has for many years been the one real success story in Iraq. While it is far from perfect, in comparison with the rest of the country it is a bastion of peace and at least halfway decent government. The Kurdish peshmerga is the best trained, most disciplined fighting force in Iraq, and yet they are poorly equipped and fighting a group that ironically has lots of high quality US made equipment, captured from the Iraqi army. The American reason for failing to arm the Kurds - a fear of encouraging the dissolution of Iraq - is particularly idiotic. As I have argued elsewhere, it is ridiculous to insist that all national borders are set in stone for all eternity or that no country should ever dissolve, as borders have changed and countries appeared and disappeared throughout history, even in the recent past. Iraq itself is a relatively recent creation cobbled together by the British, one that really made little sense in the first place as it threw together diverse groups of people who don't get along well. While this doesn't mean that changes to national boundaries should be made casually or for questionable reasons (certainly not under pressure from large neighbors who stand to benefit, as in the Ukraine situation), acting as if they should be avoided at all costs makes no sense. Indeed, the story of the Kurds' difficulty in obtaining arms provides more evidence that they might well be better off without the central government, as even when the US, while insisting that all military aid go through the central government in Baghdad, did designate some arms for the Kurds, Prime Minister Maliki refused to transfer them. As I argued in a previous article, Maliki is largely responsible for the current situation in Iraq due to his divisive policies, and this is just another example of how untrustworthy he is (he is also proving himself very power-hungry, as he has refused to give up his attempt to secure a new term in the current wrangling over the position of prime minister, despite being urged to do so by numerous parties, including the Shiite religious leadership and reportedly even Iran). The best thing the US can do know, other than acting to prevent IS from killing too many more people, is to arm the Kurds, even if the ultimate result is an independent Kurdistan, while at the same time putting pressure on Iraqi politicians to form an inclusive government that protects the interests of the Sunnis as well as the Shiites and can encourage moderate Sunnis to join in the effort to defeat the extremist IS.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
The Latest US Immigration "Crisis"
I was considering writing a post on the latest issue that the American right has been trying to club US President Barack Obama over the head with, namely the influx of unaccompanied minors arriving as refugees at the US border with Mexico, but for the most part I think Jon Stewart (for a transcript see here) and Stephen Colbert have covered it pretty well. For a more positive story about church groups working to help immigrant families, there's this article. Otherwise, all I'd like to add is to reiterate that the assertion that this influx is primarily due to Obama's immigration policies is clearly false, as not only has the US not seen a spike in similar arrivals from other Latin American countries, but Mexico and Costa Rica have also seen a large increase in refugee applications from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador (and it's not like Obama's supposed "amnesty" for immigrants would be attracting people to Costa Rica). Also, while this influx of children, with or without accompanying parents, may indeed strain resources at the border, it's not like the US as a whole is in any danger of being overwhelmed by an "invasion" of a few thousand children; it is, after all, a rich nation of 300 million people, so it can absorb these kids easily. Finally, it occurs to me that one could make a pretty dramatic film showing the journey of a child refugee escaping from a deadly environment in their home country and trying to reach the US despite all the obstacles in the way (including a not completely welcoming reception at the US border). Who knows, if it was done well it might actually improve ordinary Americans' attitudes toward undocumented immigrants, though it no doubt would have no effect on the die hard immigrant haters.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
World Events and Hobby Lobby
There's been a lot going on in the world that I'd like to comment on. There's the recent eruption of violence between Israel and Hamas. There's the continuing struggle in Iraq, which I have commented on only a few weeks ago, but which has seen a number of further developments, including the prospect of a Kurdish declaration of independence, which has received a mixed reaction (though I see no reason why nations shouldn't break up if that's what's best for their people). There's the continuing tension in the South China Sea due to China's recent power plays in the area, and there's also the protests in Hong Kong against the Chinese government's reluctance to allow real democracy. There have been disputed elections in Afghanistan. There is the little-mentioned but still continuing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma), which the always admirable Dalai Lama recently spoke out against.
But rather than talk about a complex, difficult issue or one I've discussed at length before, I'll instead stick to a brief rant on why the US Supreme Court's recent decision in the Hobby Lobby case is stupid and harmful on so many levels that it matches their money-equals-speech decisions for harmful stupidity (on the other hand, having skimmed through most of it, I can say that Ginsburg's dissent is very good). First of all, the idea that corporations can have religious beliefs is ludicrous. Anyone with even a minimal knowledge of law knows that there are two types of "legal persons", "natural persons" (i.e., human beings) and "juridical persons" (corporations, governments, and so on). The latter are also known as "artificial persons" or "fictitious persons", and for good reason:they don't eat, sleep, breath, relieve themselves, or have sex – and of course they don't go to church, temple, or mosque. Their owners may have religious beliefs, but the reason they form a corporation in the first place is to create a separation between the actions of the owners and the actions of the corporation, such that the former is not fully responsible for the latter (the so-called "corporate veil"). Furthermore, one person's exercise of their religious rights cannot be allowed to seriously infringe on the rights of others, as allowing corporations to not provide important health benefits to their employees would. This decision creates a horrible precedent that will open the door to all sorts of ludicrous claims for religious exemptions, despite the majority's nonsensical assertion that they only intended it to be a narrow decision (once you've stated that corporations can have religion, all kinds of nutty claims become possible). The majority also argued that, despite the blatantly obvious fact that the forms of contraception Hobby Lobby was complaining about did not actually cause abortions as they claimed, the courts had no right to pass judgment on the correctness of anyone's religious beliefs. This is dubious at best; when people refuse to take their children to the doctor because they claim religious objections to modern medicine, we don't let them get away with it, and if someone claims that their religion says black is white, up is down and people of strong faith can fly if they jump off tall buildings, I think a court would be perfectly in their rights to call that nonsense. Then there's the fact that if Hobby Lobby did have beliefs, it is obviously a hypocrite. Not only is Hobby Lobby still willing to pay for Viagra and vasectomies, it also invests in companies that make drugs used in actual abortions, and much of its stock is made in China, a country that not only actively encourages abortions but frequently coerces and even forces women to have them. This decision, like the one allowing unlimited spending by individuals on elections, only benefits a small number of people (in this case the owners of "closely-held" corporations) but harms far more. And finally, if there is one thing we do not need, it is more unwanted children in an already vastly overpopulated world, so any effort to make contraception harder to obtain is much more immoral than whatever these fools imagine it might be used for.
But rather than talk about a complex, difficult issue or one I've discussed at length before, I'll instead stick to a brief rant on why the US Supreme Court's recent decision in the Hobby Lobby case is stupid and harmful on so many levels that it matches their money-equals-speech decisions for harmful stupidity (on the other hand, having skimmed through most of it, I can say that Ginsburg's dissent is very good). First of all, the idea that corporations can have religious beliefs is ludicrous. Anyone with even a minimal knowledge of law knows that there are two types of "legal persons", "natural persons" (i.e., human beings) and "juridical persons" (corporations, governments, and so on). The latter are also known as "artificial persons" or "fictitious persons", and for good reason:they don't eat, sleep, breath, relieve themselves, or have sex – and of course they don't go to church, temple, or mosque. Their owners may have religious beliefs, but the reason they form a corporation in the first place is to create a separation between the actions of the owners and the actions of the corporation, such that the former is not fully responsible for the latter (the so-called "corporate veil"). Furthermore, one person's exercise of their religious rights cannot be allowed to seriously infringe on the rights of others, as allowing corporations to not provide important health benefits to their employees would. This decision creates a horrible precedent that will open the door to all sorts of ludicrous claims for religious exemptions, despite the majority's nonsensical assertion that they only intended it to be a narrow decision (once you've stated that corporations can have religion, all kinds of nutty claims become possible). The majority also argued that, despite the blatantly obvious fact that the forms of contraception Hobby Lobby was complaining about did not actually cause abortions as they claimed, the courts had no right to pass judgment on the correctness of anyone's religious beliefs. This is dubious at best; when people refuse to take their children to the doctor because they claim religious objections to modern medicine, we don't let them get away with it, and if someone claims that their religion says black is white, up is down and people of strong faith can fly if they jump off tall buildings, I think a court would be perfectly in their rights to call that nonsense. Then there's the fact that if Hobby Lobby did have beliefs, it is obviously a hypocrite. Not only is Hobby Lobby still willing to pay for Viagra and vasectomies, it also invests in companies that make drugs used in actual abortions, and much of its stock is made in China, a country that not only actively encourages abortions but frequently coerces and even forces women to have them. This decision, like the one allowing unlimited spending by individuals on elections, only benefits a small number of people (in this case the owners of "closely-held" corporations) but harms far more. And finally, if there is one thing we do not need, it is more unwanted children in an already vastly overpopulated world, so any effort to make contraception harder to obtain is much more immoral than whatever these fools imagine it might be used for.
Monday, June 30, 2014
What I've Been Reading: January 2014 to April 2014
Here are some comments on some of the books I read over the first four months of this year.
The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
This children’s fantasy novel is considered a classic, if not quite on the level of books like The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia or the Earthsea series, and my impression is that it deserves its reputation. The story takes place across time, as Will Stanton, the boy protagonist, travels through time to face agents of the Dark with the help of the Old Ones (Will himself is said to be the last of the Old Ones). Cooper draws mainly on Celtic and other forms of mythology connected with Britain. While to some extent it seems as if Will himself is rather passive, simply going with the flow much of the time and occasionally needing to be rescued by others on the side of the Light, this in some ways makes the novel feel more realistic, as it would take considerable time for a boy in his situation to adjust and learn to use his newly discovered abilities. While I wasn’t so taken with the book that I will go far out of my way to track down the rest of the related series, I will be keeping an eye out for them and will read them if I come across them.
The Pride of Chanur, Chanur’s Venture, The Kif Strike Back, Chanur’s Homecoming and Chanur’s Legacy by C. J. Cherryh
While reading a “space opera” style science fiction novel (Compass Reach) late last year, I was reminded a little of C.J. Cherryh’s novels (though only a little, as there are a lot of differences between her novels and Tiedemann’s). On impulse, I pulled Pride of Chanur, the first novel of her Chanur series, off my shelf, originally intending just to refresh my memory of it, since it had been quite a few years since I’d read it. I ended up re-reading it, and decided to go through the entire series, though I broke it up a little by reading other things between books. The first Chanur novel can be read as a standalone novel, but the next three are one continuing story, with both Chanur’s Venture and The Kif Strike Back ending on in cliffhanger-type situations (oddly enough, the omnibus paperback edition Chanur Saga that I have only has the first three novels, which meant that when I first read it I had to ask someone to help me acquire a copy of the fourth book, Chanur’s Homecoming, from the US in order to find out what happened. The fifth novel, Chanur’s Legacy, was another standalone, featuring mostly different characters, and I had not read that one yet, so I decided to do so after re-reading the other four books.
Cherryh has an a somewhat odd, clipped prose style that takes a little getting used to, and her characters often talk in a shorthand that leaves the reader a bit unsure about what’s going on. Nevertheless, her plots are fast-paced and engrossing, making her books real page-turners. What I found particularly impressive about the Chanur books was that they feature an impressively detailed alien society, or rather group of societies, as there are several alien races involved. Humans are involved, but only tangentially (only one human is a significant character, and rather than be more specific about his role, I’d suggest that readers just read the first novel from the beginning, without looking at the plot summary on the back), and none of the story is told through human eyes. Admittedly, the hani, the alien race whose point of view is central to the novels, are not all that dissimilar to humans, but even their society is distinct from ours in many important ways (they resemble an intelligent, tool-wielding race of big cats, lions in particular). But several of the other races are truly alien. Some are so alien that the hani characters – and therefore the reader – never understand much about them. But with some of the others, particularly the kif, Cherryh has given them a very different mindset that we gradually come to understand through the course of the series. At first they seem to simply be stereotypically villianous – cruel, power-hungry, and generally unpleasant – but eventually we see that while they are all those things, they have a certain kind of innocence too. For instance, they are seemingly incapable of holding a grudge; once they have joined your side, any former enmity is simply forgotten, but of course other races find it hard to do the same, which creates a lot of problems. With the hani themselves, Cherryh explores gender discrimination – but in this case, it is the males who face it. While the strongest males are the pampered lords of their clans, the others are outcasts, and males in general are considered unreliable, violent, and incapable of any work requiring skill or intelligence, which means that all hani spacefarers are female. When Pyanfur Chanur, the captain who features in the first four novels, attempts to challenge this prejudice against males, she runs into strong resistance from other hani, adding to the challenges she faces from threatening kif, scheming stsho and her not entirely trustworthy allies, the mahendo'sat.
Chanur’s Legacy, which I read for the first time after re-reading the other four books in the series (also after reading the two books discussed below), further explores the nature of the kif, the stsho and the mahendo'sat and the struggle to change hani attitudes towards males (a male spacer is one of the books main protagonists). It involves some plot twists that might come as a surprise to readers expecting the conflict to follow generally the same lines as that in the other books, and while it only features one character who was prominent in the previous novels (and a couple of others who had previously appeared), it is a worthy follow-up. As for the series as a whole, with a fascinating set of alien races, some well-developed characters, fast-paced plots and even a few thought-provoking elements, these novels are a solid example of good space opera. Cherryh is unlikely to win any literary prizes, but her books are good fun, which is enough for any reader looking for some solid entertainment.
Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
This is a very interesting historical novel (originally published under the title Ice Candy Man) about the Partition, when British India became independent and at the same time was split into India and Pakistan, told from the viewpoint of Lenny, a young Parsi girl living in Lahore in the Punjab (where the boundary between the two nations was drawn and the worst violence took place), it shows the gradual deterioration of initially amicable relationships among people of different backgrounds as independence and partition approach. It sometimes makes for grim reading, though since the main character herself does not personally experience the worst violence – though some close to her do – it is not as dark as a novel like A Thousand Splendid Suns. She does have to deal with sexual harassment, as do many of the other female characters, but unfortunately this seems to be all too common in much of South Asia, to the point where the women seem to simply regard it as normal, and a man prone to molest the women of the household is otherwise one of the more positive characters. Other characters are more disturbing as religious fanaticism takes hold, and yet even those who commit terrible atrocities in the chaos of Partition are not portrayed as thoroughly evil. The prose is clear and highly readable, and the story, if sometimes bleak, keeps the reader’s attention. One thing I wondered about is to what extent the novel reflects the personal experiences of Sidhwa, who, like Lenny, was a young Parsi girl who had been crippled by polio and was living in Lahore at the time of Partition. Be that as it may, it is a good novel and highly recommended to anyone with an interest in that part of the world.
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
This classic adventure tale, a novelization of a play by Barrie, is pretty enjoyable, though more than some novels from the same era it seems a bit dated in places – the portrayal of “Indians” (Native Americans), for instance, is far from politically correct. There is a bit more real violence than I might have expected, though admittedly a lot of it takes place offstage, as fights between the Lost Boys and Hook’s pirates involve actual fatalities. From what I recall, the Disney version was somewhat more cartoonish (not surprisingly, I suppose). In any case, it's a decent and fairly quick read though not quite essential.
The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
This children’s fantasy novel is considered a classic, if not quite on the level of books like The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia or the Earthsea series, and my impression is that it deserves its reputation. The story takes place across time, as Will Stanton, the boy protagonist, travels through time to face agents of the Dark with the help of the Old Ones (Will himself is said to be the last of the Old Ones). Cooper draws mainly on Celtic and other forms of mythology connected with Britain. While to some extent it seems as if Will himself is rather passive, simply going with the flow much of the time and occasionally needing to be rescued by others on the side of the Light, this in some ways makes the novel feel more realistic, as it would take considerable time for a boy in his situation to adjust and learn to use his newly discovered abilities. While I wasn’t so taken with the book that I will go far out of my way to track down the rest of the related series, I will be keeping an eye out for them and will read them if I come across them.
The Pride of Chanur, Chanur’s Venture, The Kif Strike Back, Chanur’s Homecoming and Chanur’s Legacy by C. J. Cherryh
While reading a “space opera” style science fiction novel (Compass Reach) late last year, I was reminded a little of C.J. Cherryh’s novels (though only a little, as there are a lot of differences between her novels and Tiedemann’s). On impulse, I pulled Pride of Chanur, the first novel of her Chanur series, off my shelf, originally intending just to refresh my memory of it, since it had been quite a few years since I’d read it. I ended up re-reading it, and decided to go through the entire series, though I broke it up a little by reading other things between books. The first Chanur novel can be read as a standalone novel, but the next three are one continuing story, with both Chanur’s Venture and The Kif Strike Back ending on in cliffhanger-type situations (oddly enough, the omnibus paperback edition Chanur Saga that I have only has the first three novels, which meant that when I first read it I had to ask someone to help me acquire a copy of the fourth book, Chanur’s Homecoming, from the US in order to find out what happened. The fifth novel, Chanur’s Legacy, was another standalone, featuring mostly different characters, and I had not read that one yet, so I decided to do so after re-reading the other four books.
Cherryh has an a somewhat odd, clipped prose style that takes a little getting used to, and her characters often talk in a shorthand that leaves the reader a bit unsure about what’s going on. Nevertheless, her plots are fast-paced and engrossing, making her books real page-turners. What I found particularly impressive about the Chanur books was that they feature an impressively detailed alien society, or rather group of societies, as there are several alien races involved. Humans are involved, but only tangentially (only one human is a significant character, and rather than be more specific about his role, I’d suggest that readers just read the first novel from the beginning, without looking at the plot summary on the back), and none of the story is told through human eyes. Admittedly, the hani, the alien race whose point of view is central to the novels, are not all that dissimilar to humans, but even their society is distinct from ours in many important ways (they resemble an intelligent, tool-wielding race of big cats, lions in particular). But several of the other races are truly alien. Some are so alien that the hani characters – and therefore the reader – never understand much about them. But with some of the others, particularly the kif, Cherryh has given them a very different mindset that we gradually come to understand through the course of the series. At first they seem to simply be stereotypically villianous – cruel, power-hungry, and generally unpleasant – but eventually we see that while they are all those things, they have a certain kind of innocence too. For instance, they are seemingly incapable of holding a grudge; once they have joined your side, any former enmity is simply forgotten, but of course other races find it hard to do the same, which creates a lot of problems. With the hani themselves, Cherryh explores gender discrimination – but in this case, it is the males who face it. While the strongest males are the pampered lords of their clans, the others are outcasts, and males in general are considered unreliable, violent, and incapable of any work requiring skill or intelligence, which means that all hani spacefarers are female. When Pyanfur Chanur, the captain who features in the first four novels, attempts to challenge this prejudice against males, she runs into strong resistance from other hani, adding to the challenges she faces from threatening kif, scheming stsho and her not entirely trustworthy allies, the mahendo'sat.
Chanur’s Legacy, which I read for the first time after re-reading the other four books in the series (also after reading the two books discussed below), further explores the nature of the kif, the stsho and the mahendo'sat and the struggle to change hani attitudes towards males (a male spacer is one of the books main protagonists). It involves some plot twists that might come as a surprise to readers expecting the conflict to follow generally the same lines as that in the other books, and while it only features one character who was prominent in the previous novels (and a couple of others who had previously appeared), it is a worthy follow-up. As for the series as a whole, with a fascinating set of alien races, some well-developed characters, fast-paced plots and even a few thought-provoking elements, these novels are a solid example of good space opera. Cherryh is unlikely to win any literary prizes, but her books are good fun, which is enough for any reader looking for some solid entertainment.
Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
This is a very interesting historical novel (originally published under the title Ice Candy Man) about the Partition, when British India became independent and at the same time was split into India and Pakistan, told from the viewpoint of Lenny, a young Parsi girl living in Lahore in the Punjab (where the boundary between the two nations was drawn and the worst violence took place), it shows the gradual deterioration of initially amicable relationships among people of different backgrounds as independence and partition approach. It sometimes makes for grim reading, though since the main character herself does not personally experience the worst violence – though some close to her do – it is not as dark as a novel like A Thousand Splendid Suns. She does have to deal with sexual harassment, as do many of the other female characters, but unfortunately this seems to be all too common in much of South Asia, to the point where the women seem to simply regard it as normal, and a man prone to molest the women of the household is otherwise one of the more positive characters. Other characters are more disturbing as religious fanaticism takes hold, and yet even those who commit terrible atrocities in the chaos of Partition are not portrayed as thoroughly evil. The prose is clear and highly readable, and the story, if sometimes bleak, keeps the reader’s attention. One thing I wondered about is to what extent the novel reflects the personal experiences of Sidhwa, who, like Lenny, was a young Parsi girl who had been crippled by polio and was living in Lahore at the time of Partition. Be that as it may, it is a good novel and highly recommended to anyone with an interest in that part of the world.
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
This classic adventure tale, a novelization of a play by Barrie, is pretty enjoyable, though more than some novels from the same era it seems a bit dated in places – the portrayal of “Indians” (Native Americans), for instance, is far from politically correct. There is a bit more real violence than I might have expected, though admittedly a lot of it takes place offstage, as fights between the Lost Boys and Hook’s pirates involve actual fatalities. From what I recall, the Disney version was somewhat more cartoonish (not surprisingly, I suppose). In any case, it's a decent and fairly quick read though not quite essential.
Friday, June 20, 2014
War Returns to Iraq
The big story internationally in the past week has been the sudden sweep through large parts of Iraq by the radical Islamist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or alternately Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham). ISIS (or ISIL) has taken over a considerable amount of territory, including Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. The Iraqi army in the area simply collapsed, and ISIS has executed hundreds of captured Iraqi soldiers (from what I recall, the group has performed even more brutal killings in Syrian territory it controls). This is clearly a nasty bunch, so much so that even al-Qaeda, a former ally, has disowned them (in fact, al-Qaeda allied Islamist groups in Syria have in places teamed up with secular rebel groups to fight ISIS, though unfortunately such in-fighting among rebels has helped Syria's leader Assad). Though rivalry no doubt has played a role in al-Qaeda's disapproval, from what I remember al-Qaeda specifically condemned some of ISIS's most brutal acts in Syria, much as they condemned Boko Haram's kidnapping of the girls in Nigeria. This isn't to say that al-Qaeda is a bunch of nice guys. Rather, it shows how horrible ISIS is, since even al-Qaeda thinks they go too far.
Unsurprisingly, many, including apparently the Iraqi government, are urging the US to consider airstrikes against ISIS. What's more, many American right-wingers are blaming US President Barack Obama for the Iraqi military collapse. As Jon Stewart quite reasonably (and of course amusingly) pointed out, many of these critics have in the past been so completely wrong about Iraq that we have no reason to listen to them anyway. Even if we ignore the fact that these American neocons are ultimately responsible for the chaos in Iraq because they led the US into invading it using false justifications such as WMDs and al-Qaeda connections, we should question their current assertion that if some US forces had been left in Iraq – and of course they blame Obama for not ensuring that some stayed, even though it was Bush who first signed the agreement setting the withdrawal date and it was the Iraqis who refused to agree to negotiate an agreement letting some American soldiers remain – this wouldn't have happened. While the US troop surge probably played a role in dampening down the insurgency in Iraq, the main factor was the co-opting of Sunni leaders who were persuaded to join in the fight against the radical groups. What has caused many Sunnis to now welcome, or at least not resist, ISIS is the behavior of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in recent years. His rule has been very divisive, clearly favoring the interests of his fellow Shiites over the Sunnis, as noted in this article. Human rights violations have also been severe, and again Sunnis have suffered disproportionately. The mere presence of a few US troops would hardly have been enough to counter the resentment that the Maliki government has generated with their heavy-handed behavior. If Obama should be blamed for anything, it should be for failing to strongly criticize Maliki's behavior, even at the risk of driving him even closer to Iran than he already is, or for failing to put pressure on him to step aside when Iyad Allawi out-polled him in the 2010 elections.
Leaving the question of blame aside, what should be done now? A number of organizations I receive emails from have been active in petitioning against US airstrikes, but I have been reluctant to sign on, not because I support airstrikes, but because I'm hesitant to completely rule them out. ISIS is clearly awful; based on what I've heard, they are probably worse than the Taliban. Some have talked about a diplomatic solution, but if by that they mean one involving ISIS, I think they are dreaming. However, there is certainly room for diplomacy involving both the Iraq government and local Sunni leaders. In fact, I think the US should insist that any substantial support that it gives to the Maliki government be contingent on Maliki taking immediate, concrete steps to improve the lot of the Sunnis and reduce sectarian tensions. Unfortunately, the fact that his allies are even now trying to pin responsibility for the Iraqi army's collapse on the Kurds, and Maliki's own wild hints about conspiracies and foreign meddling, indicate that he hasn't learned anything from this disaster. Until he does, or he is replaced by a more sensible ruler, it's hard to hold out much hope that Iraq's situation will improve any time soon.
Unsurprisingly, many, including apparently the Iraqi government, are urging the US to consider airstrikes against ISIS. What's more, many American right-wingers are blaming US President Barack Obama for the Iraqi military collapse. As Jon Stewart quite reasonably (and of course amusingly) pointed out, many of these critics have in the past been so completely wrong about Iraq that we have no reason to listen to them anyway. Even if we ignore the fact that these American neocons are ultimately responsible for the chaos in Iraq because they led the US into invading it using false justifications such as WMDs and al-Qaeda connections, we should question their current assertion that if some US forces had been left in Iraq – and of course they blame Obama for not ensuring that some stayed, even though it was Bush who first signed the agreement setting the withdrawal date and it was the Iraqis who refused to agree to negotiate an agreement letting some American soldiers remain – this wouldn't have happened. While the US troop surge probably played a role in dampening down the insurgency in Iraq, the main factor was the co-opting of Sunni leaders who were persuaded to join in the fight against the radical groups. What has caused many Sunnis to now welcome, or at least not resist, ISIS is the behavior of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in recent years. His rule has been very divisive, clearly favoring the interests of his fellow Shiites over the Sunnis, as noted in this article. Human rights violations have also been severe, and again Sunnis have suffered disproportionately. The mere presence of a few US troops would hardly have been enough to counter the resentment that the Maliki government has generated with their heavy-handed behavior. If Obama should be blamed for anything, it should be for failing to strongly criticize Maliki's behavior, even at the risk of driving him even closer to Iran than he already is, or for failing to put pressure on him to step aside when Iyad Allawi out-polled him in the 2010 elections.
Leaving the question of blame aside, what should be done now? A number of organizations I receive emails from have been active in petitioning against US airstrikes, but I have been reluctant to sign on, not because I support airstrikes, but because I'm hesitant to completely rule them out. ISIS is clearly awful; based on what I've heard, they are probably worse than the Taliban. Some have talked about a diplomatic solution, but if by that they mean one involving ISIS, I think they are dreaming. However, there is certainly room for diplomacy involving both the Iraq government and local Sunni leaders. In fact, I think the US should insist that any substantial support that it gives to the Maliki government be contingent on Maliki taking immediate, concrete steps to improve the lot of the Sunnis and reduce sectarian tensions. Unfortunately, the fact that his allies are even now trying to pin responsibility for the Iraqi army's collapse on the Kurds, and Maliki's own wild hints about conspiracies and foreign meddling, indicate that he hasn't learned anything from this disaster. Until he does, or he is replaced by a more sensible ruler, it's hard to hold out much hope that Iraq's situation will improve any time soon.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Thailand and Egypt: The Generals Take Over
Recently Thailand underwent a military coup, with the country's top military commander, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, taking power after months of political tension. This is hardly Thailand's first military coup (it has had a dozen in the last 80 or so years) or even its first in recent years (the last one was in 2006), and I'll admit to a certain initial sympathy with Prayuth's decision to take charge. Thailand has been in the grip of a long, intractable political struggle that dates back to the 2006, in which the military overthrew Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon, had governed as a populist, with initiatives that won him popularity with many of Thailand's poorer people, particularly in the northeast. While working to benefit the poor is a good thing, many of Thaksin's policies amounted to little more than handing out cash, rather than dealing with underlying issues. Also, he had a distinct authoritarian streak, showing little tolerance for dissent. Between his family's media properties and the state media, he controlled most of the major media sources. His war on drugs amounted to an extrajudicial slaughter of small-time drug dealers, letting bigger ones (including, most likely, some police officials who conveniently eliminated potential witnesses in the process) get away. He was friendly with the brutal dictatorship in Burma (Myanmar). There is plenty of reason to believe he was corrupt, using his position to benefit himself and his family interests. So there were many reasons why his loss of power didn't seem like a bad thing, even if it took a coup to accomplish it.
But Thaksin, who has been in exile since the 2006 coup, remains very popular among rural Thais and the urban poor, and in subsequent elections, parties linked to him triumphed every time. He was hated by the Bangkok-based establishment and the middle class, who succeeded in toppling several pro-Thaksin governments through court actions and protests, while major protests in 2010 by the pro-Thaksin Red Shirts against an unelected pro-establishment government ended in violence. But the most recent election in 2011 saw Thaksin's sister, Yingluck, win power as prime minister. Though she was able to remain in power without major difficulty for two years, a failed attempt to pass an amnesty law that might have allowed her brother to return led to massive protests against her and counter-protests by supporters, paralyzing Thailand politically for many months. Neither side showed any willingness to compromise, and even after a ruling by a pro-establishment court removed Yingluck from power, the stalemate between the caretaker government she left behind and the anti-Thaksin forces remained intractable. What's more, unlike the case in some other political struggles, neither side clearly had right on their side.
The problems with the anti-Thaksin forces are almost as numerous as those with Thaksin himself. The clear impression they give is that their main objection to Thaksin and those allied with him is that the latter threaten the established order. In other words, they are mostly conservatives who just want to ensure their continued dominance of Thailand's society. The leader of the protests against Yingluck's government, a former deputy prime minister named Suthep, regularly called for the reins of government to be taken over by an appointed council that would institute electoral reforms before elections would be held again. He was never specific about either how this council should be appointed or what kind of electoral reforms he wanted. What was clear, though, was he and others among the opposition mainly wanted to do whatever it took to ensure that the pro-Thaksin forces wouldn't be able to win yet another election. As I have recently pointed out, elections are hardly the panacea that some tend to see them as. However, this does not mean that undemocratic efforts aimed simply at keeping power in the hands of one faction in the society are worth supporting. Another indication of the anti-Thaksin faction's conservatism is their emphasis on loyalty to the monarchy. While my overall impression of King Bhumibol Adulyadej is favorable, neither he nor the monarchy as an institution should be absolutely inviolate. However, in Thailand, strict lese majesty laws allow people to be prosecuted for the mildest of negative or even just irreverent statements about the king or the royal family. The anti-Thaksin forces claimed that Thaksin was less than fully devoted to the king, and it seems quite possible that he might have wanted to lessen respect for the monarchy to help boost his own political dominance. But that doesn't mean that the monarchy should be completely above criticism, and the excessive devotion to the royal family shown by Thaksin's opponents is not a mark in their favor.
So given that both sides were flawed and resistant to any compromise, in some ways I could sympathize when Prayuth, after months of keeping the military on sidelines, finally got fed up and took over, detaining many of the leaders on both sides. But the more I read about Prayuth, the less favorable my impression of him is. As the article above notes, he has shown himself to be, like many on the anti-Thaksin side, a very conservative supporter of the monarchy, to the point of telling academics who were discussing reforming the lese majesty laws that if they didn't like things the way they were they should leave the country. The article also mentions that he was one of those who advocated use of force in cracking down on pro-Thaksin protests in 2010. He has a short temper and has little tolerance for dissent. So while I didn't really think much of either of the conflicting political factions, Prayuth doesn't seem like much of an improvement, and he may prove to be worse. I only hope he doesn't end up being as bad as some of the military rulers Thailand has had in the past. In any case, I'm now inclined to believe the US was right to strongly condemn Prayuth's takeover – even if the contrast with the reaction to the Egyptian army's takeover in that country shows a certain inconsistency.
Speaking of Egypt, the leader of that military takeover, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was just elected president, a result that was long ago a foregone conclusion. But this is no more a cause for celebration than Prayuth's takeover. Despite the many flaws in the Muslim Brotherhood-led government that al-Sisi overthrew, he is in many ways worse. Certainly the human rights situation has deteriorated seriously under his rule, with not only the basically non-violent Muslim Brotherhood being subjected to a brutal crackdown but also many secular dissidents being arrested. However, al-Sisi has been dealt a blow in these very elections that he won overwhelmingly. While he was in no danger of losing, since the media has been constantly singing al-Sisi's praises and the campaign workers of his single opponent seemingly faced regular harassment, it appears that the Egyptian public is not nearly as enthusiastic about al-Sisi as his supporters have led everybody to believe. Al-Sisi himself called for a turnout of up to 80%, in comparison with 52% who voted in the election that saw the Msulim Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi become the first freely elected president in Egyptian history. But turnout on the first day was poor, so the second day of voting was declared a public holiday, the pro-Sisi media castigated non-voters as traitors, and non-voters were threatened with fines. Even that didn't bring turnout up sufficiently, so in desperation the government extended voting for a third day. Even with all that, turnout apparently fell short of 50%, and some suggest that even the low official numbers may be inflated. If al-Sisi is sensible, he will react by doing more to win over those who boycotted the elections, including Brotherhood supporters by governing more like a democratic ruler who tolerates dissent and less like an autocrat who tries to crush his opponents with force. If not, at least he has received a well-deserved blow to his power.
Incidentally, talking of military suppression of dissent, next week will see the 25th anniversary of the massacre of protesters in Tienanmen Square in Beijing, China on June 4 and 5, 1989. While much has changed in China since then, many of the worst things have not. Dissent is still suppressed, human rights are still violated routinely, and the government still refuses to acknowledge that what happened in 1989 was an unjustified and brutal suppression of peaceful protestors, not a righteous act. I hope that people and countries from around the world will pause in their rush to do business with China and remember what happened 25 years ago and reflect that today's Chinese government is in most respects no less authoritarian than the one that slaughtered hundreds of Chinese civilians back then.
But Thaksin, who has been in exile since the 2006 coup, remains very popular among rural Thais and the urban poor, and in subsequent elections, parties linked to him triumphed every time. He was hated by the Bangkok-based establishment and the middle class, who succeeded in toppling several pro-Thaksin governments through court actions and protests, while major protests in 2010 by the pro-Thaksin Red Shirts against an unelected pro-establishment government ended in violence. But the most recent election in 2011 saw Thaksin's sister, Yingluck, win power as prime minister. Though she was able to remain in power without major difficulty for two years, a failed attempt to pass an amnesty law that might have allowed her brother to return led to massive protests against her and counter-protests by supporters, paralyzing Thailand politically for many months. Neither side showed any willingness to compromise, and even after a ruling by a pro-establishment court removed Yingluck from power, the stalemate between the caretaker government she left behind and the anti-Thaksin forces remained intractable. What's more, unlike the case in some other political struggles, neither side clearly had right on their side.
The problems with the anti-Thaksin forces are almost as numerous as those with Thaksin himself. The clear impression they give is that their main objection to Thaksin and those allied with him is that the latter threaten the established order. In other words, they are mostly conservatives who just want to ensure their continued dominance of Thailand's society. The leader of the protests against Yingluck's government, a former deputy prime minister named Suthep, regularly called for the reins of government to be taken over by an appointed council that would institute electoral reforms before elections would be held again. He was never specific about either how this council should be appointed or what kind of electoral reforms he wanted. What was clear, though, was he and others among the opposition mainly wanted to do whatever it took to ensure that the pro-Thaksin forces wouldn't be able to win yet another election. As I have recently pointed out, elections are hardly the panacea that some tend to see them as. However, this does not mean that undemocratic efforts aimed simply at keeping power in the hands of one faction in the society are worth supporting. Another indication of the anti-Thaksin faction's conservatism is their emphasis on loyalty to the monarchy. While my overall impression of King Bhumibol Adulyadej is favorable, neither he nor the monarchy as an institution should be absolutely inviolate. However, in Thailand, strict lese majesty laws allow people to be prosecuted for the mildest of negative or even just irreverent statements about the king or the royal family. The anti-Thaksin forces claimed that Thaksin was less than fully devoted to the king, and it seems quite possible that he might have wanted to lessen respect for the monarchy to help boost his own political dominance. But that doesn't mean that the monarchy should be completely above criticism, and the excessive devotion to the royal family shown by Thaksin's opponents is not a mark in their favor.
So given that both sides were flawed and resistant to any compromise, in some ways I could sympathize when Prayuth, after months of keeping the military on sidelines, finally got fed up and took over, detaining many of the leaders on both sides. But the more I read about Prayuth, the less favorable my impression of him is. As the article above notes, he has shown himself to be, like many on the anti-Thaksin side, a very conservative supporter of the monarchy, to the point of telling academics who were discussing reforming the lese majesty laws that if they didn't like things the way they were they should leave the country. The article also mentions that he was one of those who advocated use of force in cracking down on pro-Thaksin protests in 2010. He has a short temper and has little tolerance for dissent. So while I didn't really think much of either of the conflicting political factions, Prayuth doesn't seem like much of an improvement, and he may prove to be worse. I only hope he doesn't end up being as bad as some of the military rulers Thailand has had in the past. In any case, I'm now inclined to believe the US was right to strongly condemn Prayuth's takeover – even if the contrast with the reaction to the Egyptian army's takeover in that country shows a certain inconsistency.
Speaking of Egypt, the leader of that military takeover, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was just elected president, a result that was long ago a foregone conclusion. But this is no more a cause for celebration than Prayuth's takeover. Despite the many flaws in the Muslim Brotherhood-led government that al-Sisi overthrew, he is in many ways worse. Certainly the human rights situation has deteriorated seriously under his rule, with not only the basically non-violent Muslim Brotherhood being subjected to a brutal crackdown but also many secular dissidents being arrested. However, al-Sisi has been dealt a blow in these very elections that he won overwhelmingly. While he was in no danger of losing, since the media has been constantly singing al-Sisi's praises and the campaign workers of his single opponent seemingly faced regular harassment, it appears that the Egyptian public is not nearly as enthusiastic about al-Sisi as his supporters have led everybody to believe. Al-Sisi himself called for a turnout of up to 80%, in comparison with 52% who voted in the election that saw the Msulim Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi become the first freely elected president in Egyptian history. But turnout on the first day was poor, so the second day of voting was declared a public holiday, the pro-Sisi media castigated non-voters as traitors, and non-voters were threatened with fines. Even that didn't bring turnout up sufficiently, so in desperation the government extended voting for a third day. Even with all that, turnout apparently fell short of 50%, and some suggest that even the low official numbers may be inflated. If al-Sisi is sensible, he will react by doing more to win over those who boycotted the elections, including Brotherhood supporters by governing more like a democratic ruler who tolerates dissent and less like an autocrat who tries to crush his opponents with force. If not, at least he has received a well-deserved blow to his power.
Incidentally, talking of military suppression of dissent, next week will see the 25th anniversary of the massacre of protesters in Tienanmen Square in Beijing, China on June 4 and 5, 1989. While much has changed in China since then, many of the worst things have not. Dissent is still suppressed, human rights are still violated routinely, and the government still refuses to acknowledge that what happened in 1989 was an unjustified and brutal suppression of peaceful protestors, not a righteous act. I hope that people and countries from around the world will pause in their rush to do business with China and remember what happened 25 years ago and reflect that today's Chinese government is in most respects no less authoritarian than the one that slaughtered hundreds of Chinese civilians back then.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Some Links: Chinese Aggression, Climate Change and More
Among the numerous events that have been happening around the world in the past few weeks, there are a couple that I have been paying particular attention to. Since I haven't had time to write extensively about them, I'm going to settle for providing some links plus a few brief comments.
One important story is China's recent aggression in the South China Sea. Here are a few news articles on the subject:
http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-escalates-dispute-china-over-oil-rig-141520053.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/south-china-sea-tensions-flare-160100602.html
http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-oil-rig-move-leaves-vietnam-others-looking-210853575.html
http://news.yahoo.com/us-senators-china-sea-actions-deeply-troubling-233542282.html
http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-allows-anti-china-protest-over-oil-rig-045751418--finance.html
http://news.yahoo.com/large-protests-vietnam-over-china-oil-rig-050459736.html
http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-releases-photos-chinese-reclamation-053311309.html
http://news.yahoo.com/high-seas-vietnam-china-play-tense-game-052350219.html
Now as I have noted in the context of the similar dispute between China and Japan over the islands to the northeast of Taiwan, I have little sympathy with the claims of either side. As far as I am concerned, there is no reason these uninhabited rocks and coral reefs should belong to anybody. One of the unfortunate consequences of the modern nation-based international system (derived from Europe) is that every tiny piece of land in the world outside of Antarctica is presumed to belong to, or at least claimed by, some nation or other, even if no one has ever lived there. It would be better if all these nations left these places mostly alone, making some agreements about fishing rights (though since overfishing is a big problem, even that should be kept to a minimum), and any oil and gas that is there should be left under the ground, for reasons that should be obvious, considering the other major story I discuss below. So I don't really support the claims of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei or Taiwan, and I certainly don't sympathize with Vietnamese rioters randomly attacking Chinese workers (and even Taiwanese factories). However, recently, China has been the one aggressively pushing its absurdly broad claims (it claims the entire sea, practically all the way up to the coasts of the surrounding nations, even though in many cases the territory it claims is many hundreds of kilometers from China). China is clearly using its size in an attempt to bully its neighbors. I hope the other countries will eventually have the sense to join together and oppose Chinese imperialism in this area together.
The other story I've been paying particular attention to is climate change, where there have been a number of new and very sobering pieces of news. The US government released a report on the US climate which showed that the climate change is already affecting the US, and if nothing is done it will have an even more devastating effect in the future. Another report noted that access to water will soon become a major problem worldwide. Then in the last few days, there were the reports that the West Antarctic ice sheet has already started an irreversible collapse that will ultimately raise sea levels by at least 1.2 meters and perhaps as much as more than that over the next few centuries, even if we act quickly to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. If we continue business as usual, on the other hand, we can surely expect the ice to melt much more quickly. And for an excellent skewering of the way the American media still treats climate change as if it were a debatable issue, be sure to check out this clip from John Oliver.
Another piece of news worth mentioning is the election victory of the Narendra Modi-led BJP in India. Modi's rhetoric in recent years has been fairly moderate and the long-time ruling party, Congress has a lot of problems with corruption and ineffectiveness, so on the surface this result may seem like a good thing. But the BJP is still a Hindu nationalist party, and Modi himself,a leader of Gujirat, failed to take effective action to stop the horrendous massacre of thousands of Muslims in 2002, to put the best possible spin on what happened (there are some who think he deliberately let the massacre happen). He'll have to do an awful lot of good as prime minister to even begin to make up for that black mark in his past.
Of course the story that has been dominating world news lately, even more than those mentioned above, is that of Boko Haram's kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian girls. Thanks to the campaign to raise awareness of the incident, there is now a lot of pressure on the Nigerian government, and Western and neighboring African governments as well, to try to do something to stop Boko Haram and recover the girls. It won't be easy, however, not least because the Nigerian military itself has committed all sorts of serious human rights violations and so is highly distrusted by the people of the region where Boko Haram operates. Still, with sufficient effort by all parties and a more circumspect, civilian-friendly approach by the Nigerian military, there is some hope that Boko Haram can be defeated or at least severely weakened, and most or all of their victims rescued.
One important story is China's recent aggression in the South China Sea. Here are a few news articles on the subject:
http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-escalates-dispute-china-over-oil-rig-141520053.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/south-china-sea-tensions-flare-160100602.html
http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-oil-rig-move-leaves-vietnam-others-looking-210853575.html
http://news.yahoo.com/us-senators-china-sea-actions-deeply-troubling-233542282.html
http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-allows-anti-china-protest-over-oil-rig-045751418--finance.html
http://news.yahoo.com/large-protests-vietnam-over-china-oil-rig-050459736.html
http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-releases-photos-chinese-reclamation-053311309.html
http://news.yahoo.com/high-seas-vietnam-china-play-tense-game-052350219.html
Now as I have noted in the context of the similar dispute between China and Japan over the islands to the northeast of Taiwan, I have little sympathy with the claims of either side. As far as I am concerned, there is no reason these uninhabited rocks and coral reefs should belong to anybody. One of the unfortunate consequences of the modern nation-based international system (derived from Europe) is that every tiny piece of land in the world outside of Antarctica is presumed to belong to, or at least claimed by, some nation or other, even if no one has ever lived there. It would be better if all these nations left these places mostly alone, making some agreements about fishing rights (though since overfishing is a big problem, even that should be kept to a minimum), and any oil and gas that is there should be left under the ground, for reasons that should be obvious, considering the other major story I discuss below. So I don't really support the claims of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei or Taiwan, and I certainly don't sympathize with Vietnamese rioters randomly attacking Chinese workers (and even Taiwanese factories). However, recently, China has been the one aggressively pushing its absurdly broad claims (it claims the entire sea, practically all the way up to the coasts of the surrounding nations, even though in many cases the territory it claims is many hundreds of kilometers from China). China is clearly using its size in an attempt to bully its neighbors. I hope the other countries will eventually have the sense to join together and oppose Chinese imperialism in this area together.
The other story I've been paying particular attention to is climate change, where there have been a number of new and very sobering pieces of news. The US government released a report on the US climate which showed that the climate change is already affecting the US, and if nothing is done it will have an even more devastating effect in the future. Another report noted that access to water will soon become a major problem worldwide. Then in the last few days, there were the reports that the West Antarctic ice sheet has already started an irreversible collapse that will ultimately raise sea levels by at least 1.2 meters and perhaps as much as more than that over the next few centuries, even if we act quickly to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. If we continue business as usual, on the other hand, we can surely expect the ice to melt much more quickly. And for an excellent skewering of the way the American media still treats climate change as if it were a debatable issue, be sure to check out this clip from John Oliver.
Another piece of news worth mentioning is the election victory of the Narendra Modi-led BJP in India. Modi's rhetoric in recent years has been fairly moderate and the long-time ruling party, Congress has a lot of problems with corruption and ineffectiveness, so on the surface this result may seem like a good thing. But the BJP is still a Hindu nationalist party, and Modi himself,a leader of Gujirat, failed to take effective action to stop the horrendous massacre of thousands of Muslims in 2002, to put the best possible spin on what happened (there are some who think he deliberately let the massacre happen). He'll have to do an awful lot of good as prime minister to even begin to make up for that black mark in his past.
Of course the story that has been dominating world news lately, even more than those mentioned above, is that of Boko Haram's kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian girls. Thanks to the campaign to raise awareness of the incident, there is now a lot of pressure on the Nigerian government, and Western and neighboring African governments as well, to try to do something to stop Boko Haram and recover the girls. It won't be easy, however, not least because the Nigerian military itself has committed all sorts of serious human rights violations and so is highly distrusted by the people of the region where Boko Haram operates. Still, with sufficient effort by all parties and a more circumspect, civilian-friendly approach by the Nigerian military, there is some hope that Boko Haram can be defeated or at least severely weakened, and most or all of their victims rescued.
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